


shut your mouth, baby, stand and deliver

by saltnhalo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, Criminal Dean, F/M, Kidnapping, Kinda, M/M, Minor Castiel/Hannah (Supernatural), Nobleman Castiel, Rich Castiel, Robbery, highwayman Dean, noblewoman Hannah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 08:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11665593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltnhalo/pseuds/saltnhalo
Summary: Everyone knows that this stretch of road is notoriously dangerous - especially when it comes to the highwaymen.Castiel never should have gambled with his life.





	shut your mouth, baby, stand and deliver

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little short fic to stretch my writing muscles and get something different done after spending so long writing other things.
> 
> Title from 'River' by Bishop Briggs.
> 
> Probably not historically accurate.
> 
> Enjoy.

Castiel leans his head against the window of the carriage and gazes out into the forest beyond, fingers toying idly with the mother-of-pearl buttons at his cuffs—an outlet for his nervous energy. Ever since they left the castle, Hannah has been chattering incessantly with her maid, the two of them seated opposite Castiel and their guard. Their inane conversation and high-pitched giggling are slowly driving him to madness, and the sooner he can get out of this carriage, the better.

How he’ll ever be able to stand this woman when they’re married, he has no idea.

As a member of the nobility, Castiel is expected (by his parents, as well as the rest of high society) to marry someone of his class and breeding, someone with a title and wealth at least equal to his own. His engagement with Hannah had been arranged when they were both merely children, and now that he has come of age, they are to be wed in just a week.

His father had been furious when he found out that Castiel had snuck out of his own twentieth birthday celebrations to go riding in the forest, and ordered for his son to be escorted to Lady Hannah’s estate, where the wedding will take place. Which is why he’s trapped in this infernal carriage, with two chittering women who only care about gossip and the latest fashion, and a stone-faced guard who has said all of three words to Castiel since he took the young Lord’s trunk from him and stowed it in the carriage.

It’s going to be a long day.

After several more hours of travel, Castiel is bored nearly to tears. Sitting still without any form of entertainment or conversation is torturous for the young Lord, who likes to fill his days with reading and riding and art and throwing himself into his studies. Without anything to occupy his mind, his fingers twitch in his lap, and he itches for any kind of stimulation at all. If only his books weren’t locked in his trunk; his father had wanted him to make conversation with Hannah, but she seems as content to ignore him as he is her. Beside him, the guard continues to stare into nothingness—Castiel doesn’t know how he manages it. By the fifth hour, he’s almost jealous of how the man seems to be able to turn his thoughts off. Castiel can’t stop shifting, and when he starts tapping the toe of his boot on the wooden floor, Hannah glares at him. He continues anyway.

They’re only a few minutes away from breaking lunch in a glade adjacent to the road when the horses out in front give a shrieking whinny, the driver shouts, and the carriage judders to a halt. Castiel finds himself with an armful of blushing maid, thrown into his lap by their sudden stop. As he helps her back into his seat, he notes the way that Hannah flirts with their guard, batting her lashes at him and placing a hand on his broad forearm. Typical. He rolls his eyes.

“What’s going on out there?” he calls, twisting to rap his knuckles on the wooden wall that separates them from their driver, where the man sits outside the carriage.

There’s no reply.

Castiel’s brows furrow, and he strains to catch any sounds in the silence and the wind whipping across the road, whistling past the carriage. There’s nothing.

And then the carriage door is thrown open.

Hannah shrieks and throws herself at the guard, who—suddenly finding himself with a terrified noblewoman in his arms—is granted no chance of defending the carriage’s inhabitants when he finds himself staring down the barrel of a pistol. The maid, who is now on her own on the opposite side of the carriage, nearly faints, and Castiel knows that he must’ve turned white as a sheet himself.

The man holding the gun is tall, and has to lean down from where he’s perched atop his great bay gelding to peer into the carriage, keeping the gun trained on the guard. The guard shoves Hannah behind himself, and to Castiel’s displeasure, she’s now wedged in between them on a seat only designed to accommodate two people. That’s among the least of his worries, though.

The highwayman—because Castiel recognizes the intention behind the weapon, knows that they frequent this road, and did his father realize how dangerous it was to send them so unarmed on their journey?—is wearing the hat and bandana typical of their type. All that can be seen of him are a pair of hazel eyes, and a few locks of brown hair that have escaped the short ponytail at the nape of his neck.

“Afternoon, folks!” comes a cheery voice from beside Castiel, and he jumps in his seat. He’d been so focused on the man flanking the right-hand side of the carriage that he hadn’t noticed the left-hand door, the one closest to him, being pulled open. This man has dismounted his horse, and the black mare stands behind him, reins over her neck, making no move to wander away. _That’s a loyal creature_ , Castiel thinks, then almost giggles hysterically. What an errant thought to have, when there’s a pistol being pointed at him.

The dismounted man looks up at Castiel, and his gaze meets a pair of amused green eyes, the rest of his features obscured by the bandana. “Well, aren’t you a handsome one,” the man teases, and Castiel’s face flushes—whether from anger, or embarrassment, he can’t tell. Green-eyes gestures with the gun, and the maid, who was sobbing in the corner, breaks into hysterics all over again. “Relax, lady,” the highwayman drawls, rolling his eyes and stepping back—though the gun never wavers. “If y’all co-operate, no one’s going to get hurt. We’re just gonna rob you blind and send you on your way.” Above the bandana, his eyes crinkle, and Castiel knows that the cloth is hiding a grin. “So step out of the carriage nice and slow, starting with you, handsome.”

Castiel bristles, though he knows there’s no point in arguing with the bandits. Slowly, he steps out of the carriage, ducking his head to avoid hitting it on the doorframe on his way down. His boots plant themselves in the mud at the side of the road, and he watches the highwayman as he gestures with his gun at the two ladies. When they see the mud that awaits them, Hannah’s face turns pink with anger, and she opens her mouth as if to protest.

The man’s green eyes go cold and flinty, and the pistol’s hammer pulls back with a threatening _click_.

Hannah chokes back tears and steps down onto the ground, lifting her skirts in a vain attempt to keep them from dragging in the mud. The maid is beside herself, still in the carriage, and Hannah looks furious at the lack of assistance. The highwayman seems content to let the maid stay in the carriage, though, under watchful hazel eyes.

“Sammy, take care of the guard, would you?” Green-eyes calls. After the shout of affirmation comes from the other side of the road, the man turns his attention back to Hannah and Castiel.

Now that Castiel is no longer fearing for his life—as long as they don’t put up a struggle, he trusts that the highwaymen won’t kill either of them—he seizes the opportunity to take stock of his surroundings and figure out what the hell actually happened. He’d thought there were only two highwaymen, but in actual fact, there are three of them; the third is also dismounted and holding onto the two carriage horses to calm them. From where he’s standing, Castiel can only glimpse a shock of red hair beneath the man’s hat.

The carriage driver is lying by the side of the road, stretched out on his side as if he was placed there. Castiel can see the gentle rise and fall of his chest—he is merely unconscious. That’s enough to make up Castiel’s mind in trusting the highwaymen.

The hammer of the pistol snaps back into place as the green-eyed highwayman uncocks it. He keeps his cool gaze on Hannah and Castiel, who can’t pick out the man’s expression beneath his bandana. “Hate to do this to you, my lady,” green-eyes tells Hannah, sweeping into a small and mocking bow. Castiel has to fight to keep his lips from twitching up into an amused smile as the man continues. “I’m going to have to take your valuables now.”

Castiel has never seen Lady Hannah look so outraged. “How dare you?” she spits at the highwayman, raising her chin in fury. She casts her gaze back to the carriage, her eyes bright with anger and spots of colour high on her cheekbones, but Castiel can see through the open door that their guard has been bound and gagged, and sits in the carriage, fuming. There is no help coming for Hannah—after the cold disdain she has treated him with in the past, even after the beginning of their engagement, Castiel will not lift a finger in her defence. They’re only possessions, after all. If her safety was being threatened, he would. He’s nothing if not a gentleman, and it’s not his fault that she was never taught the kindness and humility of being a lady.

The highwayman holds out his free hand, and even from a foot away, Castiel can hear Hannah grinding her teeth. Slowly, with reluctance in every single one of her movements, she reaches up to unclasp her necklace. The jewelry is dropped into the man’s palm, and when he doesn’t retract it, the earrings, brooch and bracelet all follow. Green-eyes sifts through them with nimble fingers, then pockets them, and Hannah folds her arms, fixing him with a piercing glare.

Green-eyes smirks at her. “The ring too, darlin’.”

The engagement ring. Castiel had almost forgotten about it. It had been a very expensive gift; a show of good faith and good wealth from the Novak family. Or, at least, so he was told. He wasn’t the one to pick it out; that task had fallen to a jeweler under his father’s employ. It was simply presented to him to give to Hannah, with no emotion or love behind the gesture. As furious as his father will be, Castiel takes a cold pleasure in seeing it taken from Hannah by a commoner, a thief.

Hannah turns to Castiel as if she expects him to defend her, and when Castiel simply fixes her with a neutral stare, green-eyes laughs. The sound is warm and amused. “You expect him to defend your pretty little trinkets? Please,” he drawls, spinning the pistol once in his hand. “Anyone can see he doesn’t love you, sweetheart. Nice try. Now hand it over.”

“No.” The slight wobble in Hannah’s voice betrays her fear, and Castiel knew she was a money-obsessed fool, but he didn’t realize to what extent. The ring is expensive, granted, but not worth losing her life for.

The highwayman has evidently had enough of her, and his eyes blaze with green fire over his bandana. “Look here, you silly bitch,” he growls, his voice low and dangerous, and his grip shifts on his pistol. “I don’t want to shoot you, but you’re trying my patience, and if you don’t give me that _fucking_ ring, I’m going to resort to some drastic and unpleasant measures.”

There is silence between them, and then Hannah tears the ring from her finger and throws it to the ground, grinding it into the mud under the toe of her shoe. The hem of her dress is ruined.

When she steps back, the highwayman moves, faster than quicksilver as he steps right up into Hannah’s space. He stands tall and terrifying, and she yelps and stumbles back, one heel stepping on the hem of her dress and tearing it before she catches herself on the side of the carriage. Green-eyes just watches, still and quiet, as tears of fright well in her eyes and she scrambles back up into the carriage, where her and her maid hide together.

Green-eyes lets her go, then crouches in the mud and pries the ring from its grasp. Even after the man cleans it with the sleeve of his coat, there is mud caked around the gemstones—though it’s nothing that a proper cleaning won’t fix. Castiel’s eyes widen as the highwayman extends his hand, the ring atop his open palm. “You keep that, handsome,” green-eyes tells him, and the terrifying and righteous fire in his eyes is gone, replaced by a soft crinkling around their corners. “She won’t need it anymore.” Castiel reaches out and takes it, his fingers brushing against the man’s hand. He slips the ring safely into his pocket.

And then the gun is back, and it’s pointed straight at Castiel’s head.

“You’re coming with me.”

 _He’s not serious_. The man is going to _kidnap_ him, on the way to his own wedding? In front of his fiancée? Castiel gapes at green-eyes in disbelief. There’s no point in arguing against it, though, not when he’s looking down the barrel of a gun.

Green-eyes winks at him, and Castiel narrows his eyes, biting back a retort. Instead, he takes a moment to weigh his options. The highwayman had promised that he wouldn’t be hurt, and besides, he never wanted to marry Hannah. The only thing he regrets is that he’ll never see his books or his horse again. But if he has little to no choice in the matter, then surely leaving with the highwaymen wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

The gun waves, and Castiel blinks—he’s been thinking too long, and green-eyes is growing impatient. “C’mon, handsome,” he drawls, and then his lips purse and he gives a sharp whistle. The big black mare comes trotting over, and the highwayman swings himself up into the saddle, the pistol still trained on Castiel. It doesn’t seem like he has much of a choice in the matter.

He doesn’t look at Hannah as he crosses the muddy road, reaches his foot up into the stirrup, grasps the man’s offered hand and swings himself up into the saddle behind the highwayman.

Green-eyes grins back at him and slides his pistol back into its holster at his hip. “Sam! Charlie! Let’s go!” he calls, and the man atop the tall bay comes trotting around the carriage. The red-headed man lets go of the carriage horses with one last stroke to the nearest one’s nose, then springs up onto his roan mare. Castiel barely has time to grab onto green-eyes’ waist before he’s nudging the mare into a canter, and they’re disappearing into the forest, the other two following close behind.

Castiel doesn’t look back.

As soon as they’re out of earshot of the carriage, he thumps the man on the back, scowling when green-eyes twists in the saddle to grin at him and pulls his bandana down. “Dean!” he growls, prodding a finger into his shoulder. “When you said you’d find a way to get me out of there, I didn’t think you meant robbing my carriage at gunpoint and kidnapping me in front of my fiancée!”

Dean just laughs, and the sound carries through the forest as they canter through the trees, the mare picking her way between them with little guidance from either of her riders. “Aren’t you even going to say hello, my love?” Dean teases, earning himself another glare from Castiel. There’s no way he can stay mad at his lover, though, not when Dean is smiling at him so radiantly. “You could have at least told me,” he grumbles, wrapping his arms tight around Dean’s waist and pressing his cheek against Dean’s back. “You nearly gave me a heart attack when the carriage stopped.”

One of Dean’s hands presses gently against Castiel’s where they grip his waist, his calloused thumb brushing over Castiel’s skin. “I’m sorry, Cas,” he murmurs, slowing them to a walk now that they’re far enough away from the road. “I heard that you were travelling earlier than you were supposed to, and I had to scramble to get something into place. This is the best I could do—it’s not exactly like I had a lot of warning.”

Castiel squeezes Dean gently and presses a kiss to his shoulder. “It’s okay,” he mumbles against the fabric of Dean’s coat. “You just scared me, is all.”

“And I’m sorry for that, my love,” Dean tells him. His tone carries an equal mixture of disdain and amusement when he speaks next. “You weren’t kidding about Hannah being rude and self-absorbed, though. Aren’t you glad I came along and rescued you?”

 _More than anything in the world_ , Castiel thinks, and he nods against Dean’s back, grateful beyond words. He knows that he’s leaving behind everything that he knows, all of his luxuries, for Dean and his world, but he knows that he’s made the right decision.

He’s comfortable pressed up against Dean’s back, but he glances up as the other two riders draw closer. Both of them have pulled down their bandanas, and while Castiel recognizes Sam from Dean’s description of him, he’s surprised to find that the red-headed rider, Charlie, is female. When he tells Dean this, the three of them burst out laughing, and Castiel blushes nearly as red as Charlie’s hair. “I was far away, okay? I didn’t realize,” he splutters, but defending himself is no use—Dean only laughs harder.

The threat of tickling brings about an abrupt end to Dean’s laughter, and Castiel smiles smugly to himself. The young Lord knows how ticklish his highwayman lover is from the nights that he’s snuck out to meet Dean in the woods. They had had ample time to talk and learn about each other out in the summer night air, away from his father and the servants, Dean’s cloak draped over their bare and entangled bodies. Their forest rendezvous were never been the most comfortable or convenient, but there was no way that Castiel was going to risk Dean’s life by trying to sneak him into the castle. As long as he got to see Dean, he was happy.

Those memories are coloured fondly in his mind, and as he leans against Dean’s back and lets the black mare carry them further into the forest, he realizes that he’s free to be with Dean without restrictions now, to make as many new memories as their life together will hold.

Hannah’s old engagement ring sits heavy in his pocket, and Castiel can’t wait for the day that he melts it down, shapes a new ring and offers it to his highwayman.

**Author's Note:**

> So, it's totally my headcanon that these two met when Cas was out riding in the woods. They got to talking, even though Cas realised that Dean was a highwayman. Dean was so enamoured with the young Lord that he hung around the outside of the castle figuring out with room was Castiel's, then threw stones at his windows at night until Cas came out. After that, they arranged to meet up in the woods whenever they could.
> 
> I hope you liked this, everyone! It was really just a bit of fun. Come find me on [Tumblr](http://saltnhalo.tumblr.com), and please leave a comment or kudos <3


End file.
